The Dauwa or wet-nurse Ahirs are descended from the illegitimate
offspring of Bundela Rajput fathers by Ahir mothers who were employed
in this capacity in their families. An Ahir woman kept by a Bundela
was known as Pardwarin, or one coming from another house. This is
not considered a disgraceful origin; though the Dauwa Ahirs are not
recognised by the Ahirs proper, they form a separate section of the
caste, and Brahmans will take water from them. The children of such
mothers stood in the relation of foster-brothers to the Rajputs,
whom their mothers had nursed. The giving of milk, in accordance with
the common primitive belief in the virtue attaching to an action
in itself, was held to constitute a relation of quasi-maternity
between the nurse and infant, and hence of fraternity between her own
children and her foster-children. The former were called Dhai-bhais
or foster-brothers by the Rajputs; they were often given permanent
grants of land and employed on confidential missions, as for the
arrangement of marriages. The minister of a Raja of Karauli was
his Dauwa or foster-father, the husband of his nurse. Similarly,
Colonel Tod says that the Dhai-bhai or foster-brother of the Raja
of Boondi, commandant of the fortress of Tanagarh, was, like all
his class, devotion personified. [25] A parallel instance of the
tie of foster-kinship occurs in the case of the foster-brothers of
Conachar or Hector in _The Fair Maid of Perth_. Thus the position
of foster-brother of a Rajput was an honourable one, even though
the child might be illegitimate. Ahir women were often employed as
wet-nurses, because domestic service was a profession in which they
commonly engaged. Owing to the comparatively humble origin of a large
proportion of them they did not object to menial service, while the
purity of their caste made it possible to use them for the supply
of water and food. In Bengal the Uriya Ahirs were a common class of
servants in European houses.
The Gaolis or milkmen appear to form a distinct branch of the caste
with subcastes of their own. Among them are the Nandvans, common to
the Ahirs, the Malwi from Malwa and the Raghuvansi, called after the
Rajput clan of that name. The Ranyas take their designation from _ran_,
forest, like the Jhadia Rawats.